How to Reduce the Capicaty of an online system

[Michael Crowell_1]

I have a netserver lh3000 with 5 18GB disk in a RAID 5.
I also have a 73GB drive thats the data disk.
I'm only using 8GB of the array for the system drive (old NT4 install - upgraded to 2003)
What i need to do is shrink the logical drive down to 2 or 3 disk with the 18G in a Raid 1 or 5 so I can grow the Data drives with more 73Gs to get to Raid 1 or 5 on the logical drive for the Data.
I found this link search but it really wasnt much help.
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&objectID=tis02614

Is what I want to do possible?

Thanks

[Ruslan]

The one way, in your own risk, may be using "resizing" software, such as PQ Partition Magic or Acronis Partition Director. It works on SOFTWARE layer, not hardware. I advise to make defragmentation of logical drive, before starting resize operation.

[Peter Mattei]

This will not work!
While you can shrink your partition you are still spreading it over all 5 disks.

The only way is backup, reconfigure your disks and the restore.
I would use a tool that allows bare metal restore (including all system files) or some kind of ghost software.

Cheers
Peter

[Terri Harris]

Michael,

Unfortunately I do not know of any way to "shrink" or reduce an existing Netserver NetRAID array. I'm assuming you do not have any options from the OS level (Windows?). You have already allocated the full drive space of your RAID 5 to existing partitions or (software)logical drives?

[e4services]

I concur. Backup old configuration and restore on the new probably would be to least amount of pain, though you still may have issues with the OS, restored into a smaller partition.
Another option, along the lines of the support article you noted, would be to create the valid RAID change of RAID 5 to RAID 0, stopping the parity and deleting drives, though I am not sure what happens to the logical drive size since it will now be smaller.
Reading the NetRAID User Guide, using the NetRAID Assistant these are valid changes and are described as follows:

You can change RAID levels by using the Logical Drive Menu of the
HP NetRAID Assistant.
1. Select the Logical View button.
2. Highlight the logical drive you want to change from the Logical Devices
box on the right side of the window.
3. Choose Logical Drv from the main menu, then select Change Config.
4. Choose RAID Level from the Change Config menu. A dialog box opens.
5. Select your new RAID Level from the levels available for the new logical
drive configuration.
6. Select Apply. Reconstruction starts immediately. The Reconstruction
Progress of the logical drive rebuild is displayed in a message box and in
the Logical Devices box.

You can remove a Physical Drive from a Logical Drive:
RAID levels 3 and 5 use parity to provide data redundancy. RAID level 1
provides data redundancy through mirroring. In either case, follow these
procedures to remove a physical drive from any logical drive of RAID levels 1, 3,
or 5.
1. Change to "Fail" the status of the drive you want to remove following these
steps:
a. Choose Physical Drv from the main menu of HP NetRAID Assistant.
b. Choose Change Status from the Physical Drive menu.
c. Select Make Offline. An audible warning sounds if the drive is
controlled by an HP NetRAID Series adapter. (For an integrated
HP NetRAID controller, there is no audible warning.)
d. Turn off the audible warning by selecting the Adapter menu, then
choosing Alarm Control, then Silence Alarm.
e. Return to the main menu of HP NetRAID Assistant.
2. Change the RAID level of the logical drive to RAID 0 by using the
instructions in "Changing the RAID Level of a Logical Drive" in this
chapter. The logical drive will be rebuilt as a RAID 0 and will not include
the drive you just took offline (now in the Fail state).
3. If you want to convert the logical drive to a RAID level with redundancy,
change the RAID level once again to RAID 3 or 5.
4. Change the status of the drive you removed back to the Ready state by
using these instructions:
a. Choose Physical Drv from the main menu of HP NetRAID Assistant.
b. Choose Change Status from the Physical Drive menu.
c. Select Make Online.
d. Return to the main menu of HP NetRAID Assistant.
5. Configure this Ready disk by using the Configuration Wizard.